BB&K In the NewsAug 20, 2018

On-Call Settlement

Following Abercrombie & Fitch being ordered to pay $9.6 million to settle claims by employees who were told to call into before a shift to determine if they needed to report to work, the Northern California Record interviewed Best Best & Krieger LLP Partner Roger Crawford on the legalities of the high-profile dispute.

"There's a reporting time law in California that has been on the books for years, and the law requires that the employee reports to work, but that if they are not put to work, then they have to be compensated for showing up and that the employee is basically entitled to pay for at least half of what they were scheduled for, up to a maximum of 2 hours," Roger told the legal publication. "But this approach is something that is new for the past two years and has been somewhat unresolved in California, and there aren't any court cases on it currently."

Roger also said: "It's one of those areas where there is a solid argument based on the statutory interpretation that reporting to work actually means reporting to rather than calling in…. The more and more that the workforce relies on technology, the more that employees are allowed to work from home, or that becomes the norm, and there seems to be an expectation that working from home, even a call-in to see if you're required to come in, tends to blur the lines."

Read the full article, which ran July 31, 2018 in the Northern California Record, by clicking here.

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Established in 1891, Best Best & Krieger LLP is a full-service law firm with about 200 attorneys in 10 offices across California and in Washington, D.C. We deliver effective, timely and service-oriented solutions to complex legal issues facing public agencies, businesses and individuals.